(Me and my friends are talking about what we’ll be doing at college. The college I wanted to go to you needed 5 Cs to do a B-Tech or 4 Bs to do A-Level. I was opting for A-Level)

Me: I’m going to do English at [College]

Friend: They don’t do English B-Tech

Me: I know I’m going to do it at A-Level

Friend: But you need 4 Bs to get into A-Level

Me: …I know

Friend: Do you really think you’ll get that?

Me: Umm….Yes

(I got 5 Bs, an A and an A*, getting onto my course easily. I usually quite good at school so I have no idea why she thought I wasn’t good enough to get onto A-Level)

My mom just ate at IKEA, but she’s nice enough to buy me a Happy Meal at McDonalds. I tell her what I want, which is a Happy Meal with apples, Fanta and cheeseburger. She repeats this to the order machine, but we didn’t check the screen to see our order. This is what happens at the drive through:

Worker: So Happy Meal with Fanta, cheeseburger and carrots?

Mom: No, apples.

The worker apologizes and press a few buttons and we pay.

We pull up and mom happens to see the other worker packaging the meal, holding a bag of carrots. Maybe the second worker didn’t do any correction at all.

Mom: No, sorry, we wanted apples.

Worker #2: Sorry. Here you go.

So three screw ups in a row. While not terrible, it’s kind of annoying.

And as usual, no napkins in the Happy Meal packaging.

(When my grandparents and dad moved to the US from China they lived in a neighborhood with few Chinese families. One of them had the same last name as us. Note that most Chinese last names are very common and ours is one of the most common.)

Teacher: (dad’s full name)

Dad: Here!

Teacher: Are you (name) and (name2)’s brother? I thought it was them, no one talked about you.

Dad: I’m not.

Teacher: But you have the same last name.

Dad: In China, there are many same last names. There are 30 in my class, 5 have my last name.

Teacher: Really? That’s amazing.

Dad: Not to me.

Teacher: Well I learned something. We all did.

(The first time but not the last they were thought to be the same family.)

(Note: I am a senior in college, studying in photography. I am not majoring in Spanish, nor have ever taken a Spanish class.My dad comes to me, holding up a can in Spanish.)

Dad: You’re in college, how do you pronounce this?

Me: ……

(My school organises a trip to Iceland every year. I’ve just left my form room and bump into a friend from the year above mine, who went last year.)

Me: So, [Friend 1], how was the Iceland trip?

Friend 1: Terrible. The food was horrible, the Blue Lagoon was revolting and we caught weird diseases.

Friend 1’s Friend: I didn’t hallucinate!

Friend 1: Yes you did! You were talking about potatoes!

Friend 1’s Friend: Oh.